The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed.
Lithography processes, for example, are extensively utilized in integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing, where various resist patterns are transferred to a workpiece to form an IC device. In many instances, quality of a resist layer (and thus, the final pattern) formed over the workpiece directly impacts quality of the resulting IC device. Quality of the resist layer may be affected by dispersion of various components of a resist solution from which the resist pattern is obtained. Although existing lithography techniques have been generally adequate, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all aspects. For example, non-uniform dispersion of functional units facilitating the exposure of the resist layer may lead to adverse effects with respect to resolution, roughness (for example, line edge roughness (LER) and/or line width roughness (LWR)), and/or contrast of the final pattern.